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Members of the Congressional Ag Committee are putting on lots of frequent flyer miles this summer as they prepare to negotiate the federal Farm Bill.

Chairman Mike Conaway of Texas and several committee members travelled to Texas, Minnesota, Illinois, and California to hear directly from farmers and stakeholders about what they hope will be included in the new legislation due next year.

Chairman Conaway says each region has its own needs but they all have one thing in common:

“Everybody wants more money so that puts everyone in the same bucket. But it’s going to require the wisdom of Solomon as we try to help as many people as we can. Base it on as wise a decision as we can make. It will not be easy. They’ll be difficult but they will not get easier with the passage of time. Stuff we could decide on in August and September will not get easier in October. While they are hard, they are not impossible. And we’re going to have to make them. And to the extent that I can browbeat the Senate and others into getting stuff done before the current one expires the better.”

It is widely expected that cuts will be made in crop insurance and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the 2018 Farm Bill. SNAPP amounts to about 80-percent of the funding while farming issues take up the remaining 20-percent of Farm Bill allocations.